What is the scariest book you ever read?

[justprowlingaround]

I think mine is Salem's Lot by Stephen King.

[ladieshighfashions]

Hands down The Book of Revelations inspired by God!  For people who believe in the bible this would be a scary book but those who do not believe it would mean nothing but thank God for freedom we can believe whatever we want.

[emmbook]

Can't name one book, but Stephen King would be the author whose books scared me the most. I read his early books when I was a young teen and had a morning paper route. Nothing like have to venture out in the early morning darkness to deliver my papers with King's stories fresh in my mind. And, of course, my route took me right past the neighborhood "haunted house." I even stopped riding my bike because I could get done faster by running and cutting across the driveways and side yards ...

I stopped reading King when he started writing books literally faster than I could read them. Any author who can do that ... Now, that's just scary.

[lookingsnazzy]

I think Pet Cemetary was the scariest of King's books for me.  I read it years ago when I was in college.  I had gone to my boyfriend's families' house for the weekend.  They were super nice people and I stayed over on weekends a lot and even had a designated bedroom.  I was reading in bed late one night and finished the book and for some reason suddenly got really scared.  I got out of bed and went down the hall to the family room where my boyfriend and his sister and her boyfriend were watching a movie.  I just sort of burst into the room and then just stood there.  It sort of just relieved me to see just normal, familiar faces.  My boyfriend looked at me and asked if I was O.K.  I didn't say anything, I just sort of stood there breathing kind of hard.  He just busted out laughing and said that Stephen King book must have really scared you.  Everyone just cracked up.  I still see those people every year at world champion horse show and they still tease me about it.  They always ask me if Stephen King has scared me lately.  Years ago when Storm of the Centruy aired on television, it had been on for about 15 minutes when the phone rang.  I answered it and my old boyfriend asked if I was scared yet.  

[femmefan1946]

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion-- both because I knew what uses it had been put to, and because the edition I had was published by Henry Ford,

Sold it on eBay as Judaica.

[sineaterdoodah]

the original translation of grimm's fairy tales.

i'm a hardened horror aficionado,and it took 2 weeks to get over the nightmares!!!!

[evry1nositswindy]

I see several Stephen King novels mentioned, and while I agree, his son Joe Hill writes some frightening tales as well.  Horns, NOS4A2, and The Heart Shaped Box will turn your hair white  with fright.

[ozarkjoe]

Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin.  It claims to be genuine stories of demonic possession.

[karu2]

By Far "Helter Skelter" true story about the Charles Manson murders...couldn't sleep at night for days...

[magsworldusa]

INTENSITY by Dean Koontz - Terrifying - I had to read it in one day because I coudn't stand going to sleep and worrying all night about the main character.  Seriously!! 😮  

[1786davycrockett]

Maybe I'm just too jaded, but Stephen King's books just don't frighten me at all -- my ex-wife was a BIG fan, and I read about a dozen of King's early works, just to find out what she saw in him.  But nothing.  Nada.  

When I was about 18, I stayed up all night reading Ray Bradbury's SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES, which I found particularly gripping.  And in the early 1980s, I devoured Peter Straub's GHOST STORY, from which was made a fairly decent horror film.

As a side note, again when I was 18, I was up late one night (about 2 AM), reading an anthology of true eyewitness stories regarding "unidentified flying objects" (aka "flying saucers"), and I suddenly glanced out my ground-floor bedroom window, to see a ghastly white face, staring back at me from  outside the window, about 2 feet away from me.  I jerked away in fear, and the face suddenly disappeared.  I switched out all the lights in the house, and grabbed my father's rifle, intending to search the grounds. . .when, from around the corner of my house, a head slowly began to show itself, and a voice said "Hey, don't shoot -- it's just me!"  A surprise visit (at 2 AM!!!) from an out-of-town friend. . .who almost wound up a gunshot victim.  Very scary.

[mangusp57]

I love Stephen King.  It amazes me how he always draws me in from almost the first page.  And, how he can make the unbelievable seem so believable and real.

The scariest book I ever read was "The Mirror" by Marlys Millhiser

[mangusp57]

@laddieboyblueI remeber the "Haunting of Hill House" well.  I was thinking it was second to "The Mirror" on my list. 

Why do we all like to be scared so much?  Give me a good creepy book any day!

[southernfriedbelle]

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wrote:

I think mine is Salem's Lot by Stephen King.

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Mine too. The first SK I ever read, and still to me, the scariest. (But I do have a particular fear of vampires.)

I started having really bad insomnia in my early 20s and then terrifying bouts of sleep paralysis when I finally would drift off, which exacerbated the insomnia because I knew I'd have the sleep paralysis if I did start to go to sleep. I finally made the connection that it was occurring whenever I was reading Stephen King. So I stopped, got rid of all my hardcover books, and didn't pick up another one until Doctor Sleep. Meh. King has lost his edge IMHO. 

[1786davycrockett]

One of the most frightening books I ever read was MAGIC by William Goldman, which ONLY works if you HAVEN'T seen the movie, and if somebody HASN'T told you the "gimme" of the plot (and DON'T read any Google reviews, either!).  I always enjoyed loaning my copy to friends, and then watching their expressions when they reached about the midpoint of the book, seeing their jaws drop and their eyes bug out, and then further watching them flipping through all the pages they'd previously read, while they stuttered "How did I MISS that?!?"

[jeffbrg23]

I'm a big Stephen King fan although I have never found his books especially scary just good reads, although he has lost his edge for a few years now.

The scariest book I ever read was The Ghost Pirates by William Hope Hodgson. My Dad bought it for me when I was 12 but I didn't manage to finish until I was 17. I kept trying and got halfway through and was too terrified to carry on.